Ghana to turn water reservoirs into security zone areas

Accra, April 6, GNA-The Executive Secretary of the Water Resources Commission (WRC), Mr Ben Ampomah has said Ghana is in the process of turning all water reservoirs into security zones.

He said this was necessary as it would help safeguard the provision of quality treated water for the people.

A statement issued in Accra by the office of the WASH Resource Centre Network (RCN) Ghana and copied to the Ghana News Agency said water would soon be treated as a security resource to protect it from being abused by encroachers.

Mr Ampomah speaking at a National Level Learning Alliance Platform (NLLAP) meeting in Accra said a security post had been created at the Weija River to guard off some people or animals from polluting the water.

Speaking on the theme: “Water in the World We Want and WASH Related SDGs in Ghana” encouraged stakeholders in Ghana to adopt and adapt the Sustainable Development Goal Policy Support System (SDG PSS) since it was user friendly and generic.

Mr Ampomah said one advantage of the SDG PSS was its flexibility and urged stakeholders to tweak the system by adding more components that were suitable to the Ghanaian context to enable them monitor the implementation of the SDGs effectively.

He explained that it was critical to unpack the system also to develop and find a way to have an agreeable system to suit Ghana’s local and national contexts.

Mr Ampomah urged stakeholders in the Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) sector to contribute effectively to enrich the SDG PSS for the benefit of all countries.

The Head of the United Nations Office for Sustainable Development (UNOSD), Dr Jong Soo Yoon, indicated that experts had warned that the world would experience more environmental catastrophes if efforts were not made to effectively implement the SDGs.

He said despite these warnings, insufficient progress had been made.

Dr Yoon, said it was critical for stakeholders in the WASH sector to analyse the gaps and challenges and identify its effects on domestic policies and behavior.

The UNOSD, he noted, would continue to facilitate and monitor the implementation of the SDGs especially the water goals and targets, adding that a number of international bodies were carrying our research on water.

Dr Yoon added that the SDG PSS which was comprised six components-status component, capacity assessment component, policy & institutional assessment component, finance component, DRR/resilience component and gender mainstreaming component was very important in the implementation and tracking of progress of the SDGs.

Ms Lisa Guppy of the United Nations University – Institute of Water, Environment and Health said there was the urgent need to build synergies in the WASH sector to ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

This she said would require that stakeholders analysed their systems to identify the gaps and challenges in their domestic policies and work towards addressing them.

She said for the other SGDs targets to be achieved, there was the need for efforts to be made in shaping policies at the national level to ensure that all the water related SDGs were achieved.

Mrs Guppy expressed the need for countries to define their own national targets and priorities within the general SDG process and work assiduously on those that they can realistically achieve by 2030 and be mindful of the need to regularly report on progress.

She said the SDG PSS was open to interested individuals and organisations in Ghana to guide them in their work.

Mrs Guppy said the SDG PSS had seven components and Ghana might not require all of them, but would need to tweak the system to suit its local needs.

For the system to become enriched and relevant to institutional and national needs, she said it was critical for stakeholders to engage to contribute ideas to make it reflect the changing times.

She said the project was ready to support Ghana in tracking the progress of the SDG 6 implementation.

She said Ghana required an evidence-based policy to ensure the sustainable and accelerated implementation of the SDG 6.